FinArch, an international market leader in integrated finance and risk solutions for the financial services industry, announced today that Sterling Bank is implementing its Sub Ledger and IFRS solution, jointly with its local partner Blueprint Business Technologies (BBT).

Sterling Bank, a major bank in Nigeria, selected FinArch’s Financial Studio IFRS solution in order to comply with the IFRS regulations. With Financial Studio, Sterling Bank has chosen a modular solution that manages the full IFRS process from taking in source transactions, generating cash flows, calculating IFRS valuations, generating IFRS compliant postings from the templates provided in Financial Studio, and summarizing and feeding the resulting entries back the main general ledger. The FinArch solution addresses the bank’s challenges by providing an integrated “event to disclosure” IFRS solution. Automation, reduction of manual intervention and reconciliations, faster close at month end, and a full audit trail are some of the solution’s key features.

Abayomi Babajide, Group Head, Technology at Sterling Bank Plc., explains: “The Financial Studio application contains all the features and functionalities that are required to deliver IFRS compliant reports. The software’s overall quality and stability is absolutely commendable, and the interface is very user friendly. FinArch’s solution is built on Microsoft Technologies which is an added advantage. Most of the users are already conversant with this platform. This solution is also cost effective as there is no recurring cost for the database component. Finally, the reputations of the vendor and of the product, Financial Studio, have been certified for IFRS COA templates by Ernst & Young.”

Nigel Lee, Chief Commercial Officer at FinArch, comments: “We’re very pleased that also Sterling Bank acknowledges the benefits of our Sub Ledger and IFRS solution. As for most of our IFRS customers, the superiority and functionality of the software were for Sterling Bank the decisive factors to select Financial Studio: the functional richness of our solution, including multi-GAAP calculations and reporting, our superior data model, the easiness of use and the flexibility of the Sub Ledger. FinArch has systematically and repeatedly demonstrated that it has the competence and experience required in order to implement its solutions in line with the regulatory time pressures.” Lee adds: “Together with BBT, we are providing now several Nigerian banks the only integrated finance and risk solution available in the market today. Banks with a strategic and long term focus understand that they need to invest in a solution as Financial Studio do they want to remain profitable during the next challenging years. This new win further strengthens our presence in Nigeria and provides an excellent endorsement for Financial Studio.”

Saheed Alao, CEO of Blueprint Business Techologies (BBT) Limited states: “Spout Advantage Solution (SAS) and its sister company, Blueprint Business Technologies (BBT) Limited, partners with best-in-class solution providers in terms of functionality, lower TCO, robustness and ability to deliver. FinArch absolutely represents the logical choice for our customers. That one of the best well managed banks in the Financial Industry in Nigeria, Sterling Bank Plc and amongst the first banks to pass the CBN test, chooses FinArch’s Financial Studio Accounting for IFRS is a further testimony to FinArch’s leading position for Risk and Finance Integration. Our relationship with FinArch is focused on providing solutions and services that will help the Financial Services Industry in Nigeria. In addition to IFRS and Accounting we want to deliver the best possible solutions in the areas of Risk & Capital Management, Compliance in West Africa, all based upon FinArch’s Finance Resource Planning (FRP) framework. With the strength of both organisations and investments that have been made and still being made, we are well positioned to achieve this.” Alao concludes.

Financial Studio IAS/IFRS has been implemented by a large number of banks and financial institutions worldwide. It is generally coupled with FinArch’s multi-GAAP sub ledger, as well as with FinArch’s Compliance solution to report to the local regulator. FinArch’s IFRS solution is also frequently integrated with FinArch’s Basel solution to calculate the capital adequacy requirements, and with Financial Studio ALM to manage the Interest Rate Risk and the Liquidity Risk of their bank. The integration of this suite of solutions in Financial Studio facilitates a rapid response to the business and regulatory changes in the years ahead.

With Financial Studio, FinArch is considered Market Leader for integrated Risk & Finance for the financial services industry - testimony to the current demand in the market for its solutions, and not least for IAS/IFRS. This clearly underpins the need for convergence between risk and finance functionality. Deployed by some of the largest international banks in the world, Financial Studio is thus rapidly becoming the solution of choice for many banks world-wide, which choose to effect strategic financial transformation in a component based, minimal risk and business justified manner.